The present invention relates generally to hay balers, and more particularly to improved mechanism for retaining the latch on the wind guard of an agricultural crop pickup on a round baler.
For many years agricultural balers have been used to consolidate and package crop material so as to facilitate the storage and handling of the crop material for later use. Usually, a mower-conditioner cuts and conditions the crop material for windrow drying in the sun. When the cut crop material is properly dried, a baler is pulled along the windrows to pick up the crop material and form it into conveniently sized and shaped round bales. More specifically, the windrow pickup of the baler gathers the cut and windrowed crop material and lifts it into the baling chamber. In a round baler, the baling chamber consists of a pair of opposing sidewalls with a series of belts that rotate and compress the crop material into a cylindrical shape. When the bale has achieved a desired size and density, the operator wraps the bale to ensure that the bale maintains its shape and density. The operator then raises the tailgate of the baler and ejects the bale onto the ground. The tailgate is then closed and the cycle repeated as necessary and desired to manage the field of cut crop material.
It has been customary to provide the pickup mechanism with wind guards which hold down the hay or other crop material as it is being fed rearwardly to prevent the crop material from being blown off the pickup floor. Such guards also serve to channel the crop material to the feed means, the crop material having to pass through the space between the pickup floor and the wind guards. Typical wind guards are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,713,762; 2,872,772 and 4,411,127.
Conventional wind guards are fairly simple structures, and include an elongated pipe-like member, often referred to as a wind guard pipe, extending across the front of the pickup mechanism with a plurality of tines attached to the wind guard pipe along its length extending rearwardly over the pickup mechanism. This type of wind guard may be manually adjusted for different sizes of windrows of crop material by positioning the wind guard pipe and the tines closer to the pickup mechanism for small windrows or farther away from the pickup mechanism for large windrows. If the wind guard is adjusted for small windrows and a large windrow is encountered, the wind guard pipe and tines may be too close to the pickup mechanism to accommodate the large windrow. This could cause plugging of the pickup mechanism. If the wind guard is adjusted for large windrows and a small windrow is encountered, the wind guard tines may be too far away from the pickup mechanism to protect the small windrow. This could result in wind loss of crop material.
Most pickups employ a pair of support links pivotably affixed at the rear of the pickup assembly and extending forwardly toward the front of the pickup assembly. The forward ends of these support links have a U-shaped to receive the wind guard pipe adjacent opposing ends thereof—though an upwardly open slot would work also. A relatively short latch is pivotably affixed near the forward end of each support link, one latch per support link, and has a semicircular cutout such that each latch may be rotated to partially encircle the windrow pipe while it is engaged with the U-shaped end of the respective support link, holding it in an operative position. A spring mechanism at the pivot point of each latch creates friction between each support link and respective latch to maintain closure.
It has been found that crop material being picked up and fed between the pickup floor and the wind guard engages the forward ends of the support links and respective latches, and on occasion overcomes the friction holding the wind guard pipe in position. Thus, the wind guard pipe may come loose and become ineffectual.
It would improve the operation of agricultural crop pickups if the problems identified above could be overcome.